^^95% of those strips were clean as a whistle last year. So if i'm understanding correctly you think his "Star Status" will be reinstated and that he will get more free throws and that somehow this is a good thing for Houston. With Howard you need to look at it a bit differently I think. Fouls are turnovers with him most of the time.

"If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost." Winston Churchill

“The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."Dwight Eisenhower

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it"Thomas Sowell

Rooscooter wrote:^^95% of those strips were clean as a whistle last year. So if i'm understanding correctly you think his "Star Status" will be reinstated and that he will get more free throws and that somehow this is a good thing for Houston. With Howard you need to look at it a bit differently I think. Fouls are turnovers with him most of the time.

Fouls as in a team fouling Howard and not the other way around? If so, I agree. His FT% has been declining every year, and it won't magically increase now.

On the other hand, I'm waiting to see if other players are still going to "attack" him by giving a hard foul. He's shrunk in size and to me, that's a sign that he won't be able to absorb hard fouls as well as he could a few years ago.

Rooscooter wrote:^^95% of those strips were clean as a whistle last year. So if i'm understanding correctly you think his "Star Status" will be reinstated and that he will get more free throws and that somehow this is a good thing for Houston. With Howard you need to look at it a bit differently I think. Fouls are turnovers with him most of the time.

disagree strongly on the first point. contact to the wrists on many of those plays, imo.

and yes, that's what I believe: his star privileges were revoked for one year because he flouted the new cba and forced his way out of a small market and landed in the one place the new cba assured owners that players wouldn't land (see paul trade).

him getting fouled doesn't necessarily mean more fts for him, either. that team will be in the bonus 4 minutes into every quarter this year.

Rooscooter wrote:^^95% of those strips were clean as a whistle last year. So if i'm understanding correctly you think his "Star Status" will be reinstated and that he will get more free throws and that somehow this is a good thing for Houston. With Howard you need to look at it a bit differently I think. Fouls are turnovers with him most of the time.

disagree strongly on the first point. contact to the wrists on many of those plays, imo.

and yes, that's what I believe: his star privileges were revoked for one year because he flouted the new cba and forced his way out of a small market and landed in the one place the new cba assured owners that players wouldn't land (see paul trade).

him getting fouled doesn't necessarily mean more fts for him, either. that team will be in the bonus 4 minutes into every quarter this year.

If you truly believe this why then do you follow a sport that is rigged? You can't go half way down this road either... if you truly believe that the refs are being directed by the Commissioner to "Revoke" a "Privilege" for a "Star" then it's professional wrestling with a ball....

Howard exposes the ball and gets it stripped a lot. Almost all of the ones I saw last year were clean strips. I also saw Howard get away with a ton of moving screens and fouls under the basket that weren't called. Following your train of thought I fully expect the refs working those games to be publicly executed.

If there was a conspiracy in the Paul Trade fiasco then I fully support the Commish.....

"If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost." Winston Churchill

“The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."Dwight Eisenhower

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it"Thomas Sowell

Well, personally, I think Dwight doesn't/didn't get as many calls as he should have because he's so strong. Rose is another guy that I think doesn't get enough calls because he's so strong. Commentators always say how he magically contorts his body in midair like some ninja to avoid contact and make the shot. It's true that Rose has amazing body control in air, but the dude gets fouled a lot.

I thought it was 70/30 in terms of Dwight getting cleanly stripped and him getting fouled. When you are a big and bring the ball down below your waist, you're going to get stripped a majority of the time.

And Dwight not getting calls? The refs could easily foul him out of the game based on him trying to establish post position. He blatantly goes into the defender with his elbows up and shoves them to establish position. He gets called for it about 2-3 times a game and gets away with another 10.

He's already getting help from the refs if we are going to say he doesn't get calls.

Rule of Thumb at ClubLakers - Never encourage people to check your post history.

thkthebest wrote:Well, personally, I think Dwight doesn't/didn't get as many calls as he should have because he's so strong.

I agree, same with Shaq, Andrew Bynum and Yao Ming. The big guys are harder to officiate and because of their size, they take more abuse and dish out more abuse. I remember a sequence of events in a playoff game when Dwight was with Orlando and Pork was still playing for the evil empire. In a 10 second sequence, Pork hit Dwight hard 3 times. The refs swallowed their whistles the first two times. Finally the 3rd time they called a foul and by that time Dwight was mad and got a T called on him. I remember Dwight getting raked across the arms several times over last season and no foul being called.

Rooscooter wrote:If you truly believe this why then do you follow a sport that is rigged? You can't go half way down this road either... if you truly believe that the refs are being directed by the Commissioner to "Revoke" a "Privilege" for a "Star" then it's professional wrestling with a ball....

Howard exposes the ball and gets it stripped a lot. Almost all of the ones I saw last year were clean strips. I also saw Howard get away with a ton of moving screens and fouls under the basket that weren't called. Following your train of thought I fully expect the refs working those games to be publicly executed.

If there was a conspiracy in the Paul Trade fiasco then I fully support the Commish.....

because i'm a grown up who does what he wants? and no one said anything about a red phone or any of this nonsense. nor did I claim howard didn't get away with some things. my claim is that howard didn't get stripped that much in Orlando (because they called fouls on those plays), and that I bet he turns the ball over less on those plays in Houston (because teams won't be allowed to hack at his arms with impunity). we'll see.

and there was clearly a conspiracy in the paul trade...basically by definition.

In Orlando Howard was basically alone in the paint because of the makeup of that team. I made the call on him getting stripped more here because of MWP Nash and Pau's need to play close to the hoop and limiting his space. That's exactly the difference between LA and Orlando...... Not some precieved punitive strong pulling by the commissioner. That's excuse making.

As I said before, you can't selectively believe in conspiracy..... It's like being kind of pregnant.

As for the Paul Trade..... Who owned the Hornets at that time and who was their fudiciary representative? Now the rest of the league not wanting the best team getting better may have happened, but to think it was a narrow group or just one person is to not fully understand my initial question.

"If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost." Winston Churchill

“The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."Dwight Eisenhower

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it"Thomas Sowell

it's not a black and white thing as you suggest. the fact that nba officiating follows q-ratings is evidence enough for me that they don't run their business right. it's you that chose the word "conspiracy" for what I discussed with howard. it's probably not the right term, as "conspiracy" implies willful action by parties in secret and in explicit concert. the explicit part is the one that the "quit whining" group always harps on. I think the former nba officials suggesting that it's a good ol' boys club and that those who don't learn to intuit what the league wants find themselves out of work is unsurprising. no one needed to tell the "best" officials that dwyane wade needed 20 FTAs per game in the 2006 finals...they just knew...because they were the "good" officials (this, btw, was what got Cuban in hot water with stern--his assertion that the way they evaluate and choose officials for important games was not at all transparent).

as for the paul trade, oh goodness yes that was a conspiracy. I pretty much guarantee that conversations happened in private between interested parties that led to that outcome. the fact that they got to hide behind a technicality made it even more disgusting. interestingly, I view the 2006 finals and the paul trade fiasco as the biggest black eyes on the nba in my lifetime. one was outright conspiracy, the other the result of basically creative hegemony.

abeer3 wrote:it's not a black and white thing as you suggest. the fact that nba officiating follows q-ratings is evidence enough for me that they don't run their business right. it's you that chose the word "conspiracy" for what I discussed with howard. it's probably not the right term, as "conspiracy" implies willful action by parties in secret and in explicit concert. the explicit part is the one that the "quit whining" group always harps on. I think the former nba officials suggesting that it's a good ol' boys club and that those who don't learn to intuit what the league wants find themselves out of work is unsurprising. no one needed to tell the "best" officials that dwyane wade needed 20 FTAs per game in the 2006 finals...they just knew...because they were the "good" officials (this, btw, was what got Cuban in hot water with stern--his assertion that the way they evaluate and choose officials for important games was not at all transparent).

as for the paul trade, oh goodness yes that was a conspiracy. I pretty much guarantee that conversations happened in private between interested parties that led to that outcome. the fact that they got to hide behind a technicality made it even more disgusting. interestingly, I view the 2006 finals and the paul trade fiasco as the biggest black eyes on the nba in my lifetime. one was outright conspiracy, the other the result of basically creative hegemony.

As I said about the Paul trade.... Who owned the Hornets and who was the fudiciary is the problem. The commissioner was in a position to stop that because he was acting as the owner because the NBA was under political pressure to keep a team in New Orleans. That team should have been folded up an the players drafted away. The NBA's own guidelines forbid that relationship for longer that it took to dismantle the team. When the rest of the owners are paying the bill they get a say.... No conspiracy, just shady business. Teams don't have to trade with other teams. It's an elective process and the deal they got was better than what we offered so it isn't like they got a worse deal and screwed us.

"If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost." Winston Churchill

“The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded."Dwight Eisenhower

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it"Thomas Sowell

again, technicalities. the league actually stated that they would let the team manage themselves (so that they weren't pressured to find a buyer sooner). the fact that they did...then stepped in to "rectify" the situation is very clearly shady business, as you state, but it was also clearly done with intentions beyond those of the franchise in question in mind. in other words, if you buy the story you're telling, I've got a bridge to sell you. had it been, say, the Houston rockets, making the same deal for paul, no way stern steps in. and had the alternate suitor been Milwaukee (instead of lac), I think the league doesn't bother, either.

abeer3 wrote:again, technicalities. the league actually stated that they would let the team manage themselves (so that they weren't pressured to find a buyer sooner). the fact that they did...then stepped in to "rectify" the situation is very clearly shady business, as you state, but it was also clearly done with intentions beyond those of the franchise in question in mind. in other words, if you buy the story you're telling, I've got a bridge to sell you. had it been, say, the Houston rockets, making the same deal for paul, no way stern steps in. and had the alternate suitor been Milwaukee (instead of lac), I think the league doesn't bother, either.

The league didn't want the Lakers to have Paul, it's as simple as that. The small market teams had just made an enormous stink about how the large market teams get all the breaks and make all the money and then immediately afterwards the Lakers get Paul? No. Stern wouldn't allow it.

Beverley is an assclown. Can't believe he has the nerve to complain to the refs about his flop especially when it can be reviewed (by reviewed, I mean on tape, etc.) and he could be flagged for flopacopter warnings.